


friends?

by doctormissy



Series: 9 Days Christmas Writing Challenge [25]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: 9 Days Christmas Writing Challenge, Christmas, F/M, Friendship/Love, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 11:12:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13234467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctormissy/pseuds/doctormissy
Summary: ‘Robin, what are you doing here?’Despite his rather grumpy welcome, she smiled. ‘I should ask the same question,’ she said, and hung her coat on the peg as always. ‘You shouldn’t be working on Christmas.’





	friends?

It was Christmas Day. Having a compulsory day off his cases of two unfaithful husbands, a boss stalking her secretary, and a violent, alcoholic husband beating his wife and son, Strike sat down at Robin’s computer with a poor cheese-and-ham sandwich and turned it on. He opened his e-mail to check for wishes of happy holidays and delete adverts. He didn’t care enough to reply to the six messages he’d been sent, so he closed it again and gulped down the sandwich.

The sky above London was rather dark and gloomy, and the clouds threatened to release a snowy shower, but it was too warm for it to become anything but inconvenient slush. The only light in the office was produced by a small lamp on the desk, which suited his mood perfectly. Robin has put a tiny plastic tree on the deck, but there were no lights on it.

He thought about Robin and what she was doing right now. She hasn’t gone home to Masham; instead, she’d decided to spend her first Christmas as Mrs Cunliffe with no one but her husband. _Her husband._ It’s been half a year since the wedding, and Strike still thought she has made the biggest mistake of her life. Matthew wasn’t a man for her. She was unhappy in the relationship once, it might happen again. The reminiscence of Charlotte hasn’t evaporated from his memory, and it probably never will.

 _It’s hardly my business what Robin does with her personal life_ , he reminded himself. He had vowed to never cross the line between personal and professional, once, and he intended to keep that vow. He shouldn’t even be thinking of her.

The sandwich was soon gone. Wordlessly, Strike complained about forgetting to stop by a grocery shop. He had some Christmas pudding and a turkey leg with potatoes given to him by Nick and Ilsa, who had unexpectedly shown up at his doorstep earlier today, out of pity in a fridge upstairs, but he was saving that for dinner. He got up and put the kettle on.

With a steaming mug of tea in one hand, he sat on the leather sofa, the customary noises ensuing. The office was unusually quiet without his partner’s fingers typing away on the keyboard or her absent-minded humming. He was shy to admit he missed her presence, but his days were undoubtedly less dull when her strawberry-blonde hair and cheerful nature were around.

He drank the tea. It was too hot. ‘Fuck,’ he said as he spat it right back into the mug. What was he thinking? A frown wrinkled his brow. He laid his tea on the coffee table in front of him. Then the lights in the stairwell switched on. He automatically turned to the door, expecting Robin to walk into the office. Of course, she—a female figure stopped in front of the office. She entered.

‘Robin, what are you doing here?’

Despite his rather grumpy welcome, she smiled. ‘I should ask the same question,’ she said, and hung her coat on the peg as always. ‘You shouldn’t be working on Christmas.’

‘I’m not working,’ Strike objected. For once, it was the truth.

He had no reason to dwell in the office instead of his little but warm flat, yet here he was. Perhaps he had thought to go through the photographs of Mr Garrett and his mistress after lunch to kill time, for there was nothing decent on telly all day.

‘So I see,’ Robin said and sat down next to him elegantly. Strike glanced at the silver band on her finger. He noticed it every time he looked at her, a shining ring of commitment and a warning for all men. She chirped an answer to his first question, ‘I’ve come to give you a present.’

‘You didn’t have to do that, Robin,’ he replied. _What did Matthew think about that?_ He looked at her. Robin’s eyes glistened in the dim light of the lamp. He glimpsed a spark happiness in them, and wondered what, or rather who, was the cause of it.

‘’Course I did,’ she insisted, ‘you gave me that lovely scarf yesterday, and I had nothing for you.’ She opened her handbag and pulled out a neatly wrapped medium-sized box, which she handed to Strike. She wasn’t wearing the scarf. ‘Besides, I knew you’d be alone in here, all broody and drinking, Cormoran. You need cheering up, and that’s what friends do.’

 _Are we? Friends?_ He dismissed the thought and instead asked, ‘What about Matthew?’

‘I’ve got a week to spend with Matthew before I go back to work.’

Strike said nothing on that. He briskly unwrapped his present, which he half expected to contain another pile of Cornish foods or maybe a mug. The latter wasn’t so far from reality; it was a deluxe collection of Ceylonese teas packed in small smooth black boxes. They looked expensive. He picked one up and examined it closely.

‘Thank you,’ he said, flitting through the information on the back, ‘I was running out of tea.’

Robin chuckled, ‘Yeah, I know.’ She put a strand of hair behind her ear. Her earrings looked suspiciously like diamonds. They must have been a gift from Matthew.

‘I wasn’t drinking, by the way,’ said Strike. ‘Not spirits, anyway.’ He put the box down and drank his, now colder, black tea.

Robin stood up and walked to the tiny kitchen. She took two glasses from a cupboard and opened the fridge, where he kept a bottle of emergency whisky. He tried not to stare at her when she bent for the bottle but failed spectacularly. His partner was a very beautiful woman. He’d thought that her marriage would make things easier for their professional relationship. It had, at first; he hadn’t as much looked at her. But then he’d met Matthew Cunliffe and got to know Robin better on the days spent in the office and their improvised trips. He had learnt that it made things much harder sometimes.

‘You are now,’ she said as she placed the tumblers on the coffee table and poured for the both of them. He stopped that train of thought right there.

‘Cheers.’ Strike lifted his glass and waited until Robin screwed the lid back on the bottle. They clinked glasses.

‘Merry Christmas, Cormoran,’ she said and tasted her whisky.

Strike didn’t care about Christmas, really. They had never celebrated it properly with Leda and her boyfriends, moving from one squat to another, from one shady group of people to another. ‘Merry Christmas, Robin,’ he repeated nevertheless.

She smiled at him, and he smiled back.


End file.
